Modernity
by Kristallisatie
Summary: Series of short and silly fic / drabbles on on how nations deal with modern life. Main stages are in German speaking region, Western Europe, and Chinese speaking region. Warning: Use of recent news are fairly frequent. All reference are based on facts and are unmodified (unless specified). Welcome to the reality of 2014 and onward!


Character in this chapter: Germany, Bavaria, Austria, America, France, England, Hong Kong, China, Prussia, Saxony, Italy. (in order of appearance)

Use of human names.

Inspiration from quindecim15 of tumblr.

Explanation can be found at the end of the chapter!

* * *

**-Traffic: 8:44am-**

Ludwig is glad that he doesn't live anywhere near E51 or A100, Straße des 17. Juni seldom suffers in intolerable congestion since there are enough open lanes for cars to drive through smoothly.

But he doesn't matter to him anyhow because he is biking anyway.

**-!-**

Theodoric doesn't know what has possessed him. The traffic on Prinzregentenstraße crossing Isar looks impossibly long, so he turns left at Ismaringerstraße. He thinks he just outsmarted everyone.

A few seconds later he notices that he has committed the biggest mistake ever. He forgot that his brother dear's road is the nightmare of citizens in Munich.

"Oh God, why..."

Innere Wiener Straße. The road where apparently Austrians get lost trying to get into Old Town of Munich.

"Brother dear, how much I want to stab you right now," Glancing at the clock, he bites his lips, knowing that he will not be able to make it to the Rathaus at 9am.

Someone needs to remind him everyday to NOT drive into town from east of Isar.

**-!-**

Similar incidents happen in Vienna as well.

Roderich thinks that must be some kind of mysterious work that the section of Wiener Straße merging into Schönbrunner Straße is congested almost everyday.

There is no one but himself to blame. But he doesn't know where to start the blame with.

**-!-**

It is his 50th minute coming to an incomplete halt on I-95, and he drove about five miles during it.

"How I love DC metro..." Alfred turns off the radio when Katy Perry's Black Horse repeats for the third time, and switches to some kind of country music. He notices some wrappers on the carpet in his backseat.

"Is this to tell me that I have cholesterol congestion?"

If that is so, he has been warned about his health for a few decades already.

**-!-**

The sightings of celebrities might make women make silent but crazy screams in the tube, but it only serves as a reminder that someone completely disregarded his email yesterday and did not complete what he needs by today morning. "I see you finally pick up my call, after seven times of rejecting it on purpose. Good for you, someone to flirt with that early in the morning. Might as well make it up to thirteen."

"Relax-! Don't take your frustration at London traffic on me. I am commuting from home today," Though he isn't wrong since Francis is on his phone when he grabs over a bag of croissants from the female worker with a flirtatious wink. "I need to buy milk as well; I just ran out of it. I saw your text. You can resend me the files via email attachment and I will read through it. Probably by noon."

_'The next station is St James' Park. Upon arrival, the last set of doors will not open. Customers in the last carriage please move towards the front doors to leave the train.'_

"Damn right, reading less than a hundred pages takes three hours. That sounds like you," Arthur snorts and holds onto the the handle tightly. "On semi-strike again?"

"Heh no. I just don't want to deal with the taxi protest." He is amused seeing lines of Taxi driving on the street refusing to take customers. "Darling, I do need to work on the files from Ludwig before handling yours. Unfortunately, _you are just not that important_.

**-!-**

"lol, traffic," Chris Wong doesn't even want to think of that because he really needs to get into the MTR asap. He needs to get to Kowloon Tong by 9:30am and now he is stuck at Admiralty.

Admiralty is known for two thousand people trying to cram into the trains, sure, but it's getting more...ridiculous lately?

This train is gone. Next train comes in one minute. These are things that are only possible in Hong Kong.

Another train just arrives. The typical_ 'please mind the gap between the train and the platform doo doo doo doo doo doo doo'_ sound. And there's one woman trying to get in. Her hair got stuck by both the train door and the platform gate.

Ouch. the hair. Ouch, the thought of going back to Wanchai Police Station to catch a bus through Cross Harbour Tunnel. No, the thought of Glocester Road is disgusting enough.

"_Diu..._"

**-!-**

"Talk about traffic," Wang Yao simply gives up in Beijing.

* * *

**-Modern Communication: Gilbert, my sincere condolence-**

"Hey, Roddy!" Gilbert takes out his andorid and wraps Roderich over with a grin, making the other smile as well. "Snapchat time!"

-?-

Roderich decides to retire to the kitchen with knives surrounding him, so that Gilbert can no longer approach him easily.

It is Saturday morning, and Ludwig is currently taking a small vacation in Roderich's house in the outskirt of Vienna. He has found himself some time to surf the internet other than for business purpose. He scrolls down his page and frowns deeply at his discovery.

"Gilbert, I think Roderich's twitter account is compromised..."

"Really!? Let me see!?" The Prussian rises from the chair in excitement. He seizes the chance to RT all the compromised tweets to his protected account (with screenshots) for future blackmail purpose.

-?-

Adalbert clicks on the call button as soon as he sees Theodoric logs onto Skype.

"Oh hey- you seem so eager today-" Theo can't help but offer the other a twisted smirk.

"Shut up Theo, you still owe me money." The Saxon flicks decisively at his microphone to make a deafening sound. The said Bavarian wearing a pair of earbuds is severely affected.

"Do you have any idea where Gilbert is?" The brown coal power output reduction proposal that he is supposed to work on for Mr. Gabriel due yesterday- he ditched his work unfinished and I need to follow up." The report looks so shitty that Adalbert wonders if he had lived as East Germany before. "He is not responding to my calls or emails, and he is not on skype."

"That Saupreiß?" Sometimes the Saxon is so dorky that he can't resist the urge to drive to Dresden right now. He laughs out loud and pulls out his phone to show it to Adalbert. "Didn't you check your news feed? He fucking checked into Roderich's house. He fucking did."

-?-

He is not the occasionally old-fashioned person in the German group, rest assured.

"Hello Vash? Yes? She is injured? Oh Lord. Thank you for informing me. Oh? Are you going to inform Feliks for them as well? I appreciate it," Roderich hangs up the call with his home phone and walks over to the living room for Ludwig and Gilbert.

"Ms Merkel fell during skiing, and has suffered heavy bruising combined with an incomplete fracture of the left rear pelvic ring."

The German brothers facepalm together.

-?-

Five hours later, Adalbert and Theodoric arrive at Roderich's house together, but in different cars. Mercedes-Benz (he would have picked something else but...) and BMW. Roderich drives an Audi, Ludwig drives a Porsche, and Gilbert drives a Volkswagen.

The look of vengeance in Adalbert's eyes, and the look of pretentious innocence in Theodoric's eyes make Ludwig want to separate those two urgently. That reminds Roderich of something in the past.

They can only hope that someone doesn't come over and breaks the status-quo.

-?-

A Ferrari breaks into the garage.

A man of small figure comes out of the bright red sport car.

"Ciao Ludwig~ I'm sorry for my sudden appearance- I saw you got tagged in Gilbert's check in status and I just want to come say hi. I haven't seen you around the Southern region forever and it is nice to see you enjoying your vacation. Mind if I join?"

"Oh God, this is barely a week after Christmas and you all are going to get so many speeding tickets..." Roderich exclaims.

* * *

**!Notes!**

**Traffic series:**

Those are combination of personal experience, what I was told, and google traffic data.

**Berlin:** The corridor of E51 and A100 towards Mitte Berlin is quite congested everyday around 8~9am. People bike a lot in the city. You can see like a pack of 12 bikers in business attire on the bike line around morning and evening rush hours...

**Munich:** Same. It is a huge red line on google traffic data (even street view shows how congested it is...) People do bike, but less frequent than in Berlin? The tramway is popular.

**Vienna:** Same, personal experience and traffic data.

**Washington D.C.:** Infamous I-95, north-bound traffic from Virginia...

_Search I-95, East Coast corridor. _

**London:** London is notorious in its morning traffic to the point celebrities take the tube too. Arthur doesn't bother driving on a daily basis anymore.

_Search dailymail, bad London traffic celebrity._

**Paris:** Francis is having a problem with Taxi protest, and I didn't twist it at all. And it is true that France takes priority on EU (aka German) related work over British issues. In fact they don't really care about the Brits as much.

_Search Paris Taxi Protest. _

**Hong Kong:** I twisted the location (from Tseung Kwan O to Admiralty), but there was indeed a woman with her hair caught at the platform. And traffic is really bad in rush hours everywhere south of Sha Tin, the worst in Central, Wan Chai, and Yau Tsim Mong District.

_Search hair, MTR, Apple daily, platform. _

**Beijing:** No explanation necessary...

**Modern Communication series: **

It's just the Europeans living in a fairly modern life. The recurring "headcanon" in Hetalia of Roderich being extremely old-fashioned and inept in modern technology is just wrong. Vienna does have a very antique looking, but it is one of the most modern, sustainable, and livable city in the world. I went to this festival last year and it was really nice.

Search Forschen Entdecken, Forschungfest am Naschmarkt.

**Snapchat, skype, facebook, twitter:** Self explanatory - we use them too, why not them? Though... While Roderich is pretty decent in technology, he is still not the best person to use it. Fair enough. Gilbert might do selfie olympics...

**Work Proposal:** Brown coal is one of the problems still existing in former East Germany, and as two biggest states in East Germany (Prussia/Brandenburg and Saxony, it's natural for them to handle the initial proposal before the human in Bundestag takes over.

_Search spiegel for researchers-alarmed-at-rise-in-german-brown-coal-power-output._

**Car:** It is in the most expensive order...to the least? Audi is generally (in average) slightly more expensive than Mercedes, but Mercedes have really high end models as well as affordable ones too, so... And Feliciano's Ferrari and Lamborghini collection is just insane.

**Separating Bavaria and Saxony apart:** Under the assumption that HRE = Germany. Back in 1137, those two were under personal union (getting married). Since those two were the most powerful duchies of Holy Roman Empire, other German princes were bitter/jealous and HRE was very afraid of their joint force. Therefore HRE ordered them two to be separated. They weren't happy about it, so they created a big mess later ... And Roderich remembered all that mess.

_Search Henry the Proud and Henry the Lion. _

**Speeding Tickets:** Running joke that Germans and Italians (who speed in their own country) remain speeding in Austria, which isn't allowed, and they get lots of tickets.


End file.
